ROBERT BEROLD

the world comes out of the ground at the wavelength of earth

the lights go out in the cities
one by one as the scores are settled
the vests on sunbirds glint
--- if only the light would come down –
the venoms of adders concentrate
over thousands/millions of years

my soul was eaten first by dogs, which came
with red tongues and black lips. then distorted birds
with mandibles and talons. then human being-like creatures
with energies thickened by desire. then the rivers
washed me clean in floods and estuaries
floated me down cobble beds and riffle zones.

take care of all the details. splash water on your face,
piss straight. Wrap your memory in sand,
switch on the computer, check your mail, begin
the job. get your blankets disinfected in the sun.
two letters from unfriendly customers. six more
degrees of temperature. an overheated vehicle.

I would like to go back down into the rocks
and become the forest. I would like to move positively
on the airwaves. positively in the lightbulbs and
aerial connections. I would like a last reminder
that our minds are only partially our own
that we come from a more luminous continuum. 

I would like jesus to come down and demonstrate urgently
on live tv that kindness is a more efficient way to live.
then put a kink in every gun to render it inoperable
and as a second miracle, make nobody on the planet have three times more
than what is needed for basic food and shelter, and then (the real miracle)
tune their appetites so that they’re happy with that

the mind after death is nine times sharper
(says the Tibetan book of the dead)
but we live here where memory has a destination, where
thousands of things scurry around, pass messages, eat each other,
in steady cycles of life decay and beauty.		this is
our place, our economics, this is where we return to.

the world comes out of the ground at the wavelength of earth
it shocks the human heartbeat into starring
the world comes out at the scale of the soil
a pure sound the wavelength of bacteria
it spreads itself over the sky
with the brilliant red and yellow of disaster

equals

it’s langa massacre sharpeville day
the pain is coming down the years
subtract the untold sands of darkness
subtract the words which run like sand
	equals what we cannot understand.

add the warm river with crabs and fish
add the clear light of the clouds
add the dreams of swimming and flying
subtract the hard rain on the roof
	equals what we cannot understand.

things came and pecked at me
hungry crows attracted to my wound.
I went into a house, a woman washed me.
In the semi-dark she called up the spirits
Drove off what was bothering me.

I set out, with my lame legs.
far, beyond the sunflower fields.
sang a wartime song my mother used to sing
squelched over the red mud roads
lay down in a farmer’s field

I work here putting seedlings into trays
I like the watering, it meditates me.
add the daylight and the pelting storm
add the woman whose face I never saw
	equals god’s love which we cannot understand.

the decision

The room was newly painted and the tables polished.
The mayor was dressed casually.
The councillors had thick files tied with rubber bands.
The man’s fate was being decided.
The councillors asked
Was it viable? What about sustainability?
The man was asked to speak.
He should have lost his temper
and shouted “Who are you to decide?”
but he looked up at the newly painted windowframe
and down at the carpeted floor.

timbila poets workshops

between 
the fever trees
and warthogs
in the dark
poets pile plates
high with rice
meat and gravy
piled up
to the stars
bereft and laughing
unemployed   unbroken